Question Time audience......

[Bentley Bullet]

So you claim that I voted to leave. It's with that final untruth that I'm leaving this discussion.

[hoolahoop]

So you claim that I voted to leave. It's with that final untruth that I'm leaving this discussion.

Good because all you've done since the beginning  of this has been to  attempt to break down the arguments of the Remain side - accepting none of the arguments against the Leave campaign .

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

This is how politics works.

At the top level you have the principles. Look at what the principles were underpinning the Leave and Remain arguments.

Leave:
We’d be economically better off outside than if we stayed in.

Remain: We’d be economically worse off outside than if we stayed in.

There is no question which side was right on that level. None whatsoever. The economic hit that was predicted by Remain HAS happened and all the serious predictions are that it will continue to happen over the next 5-10 years. The only counter to that which Leave has is that there’ll be some fairy dust sprinkled over the economy.

Politics then works by distilling that down to bite sized chunks because the Electorate doesn’t want to wade through economic detail.

Leave said: We’d be better off by £350/week. That is a lie, pure and simple. They knew that. They no longer claim that.

Sensible Remainers said the economic cost would be a long, slow relative decline. That IS happening. Osborne tried to distill that further by claiming there would be an immediate recession. That was a silly thing to claim because it didn’t take account of the rest of the world’s performance. If he’d said “there will be a recession ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL” he would have been correct. It was a foolish over-egging but by no measure was it a lie to match the £350m/week claim.

You can do a similar analysis on Turkey, on Ireland, on the willingness of the EU to negotiate a wonderful deal with us. On all counts, Remain were broadly correct in what they said. Leave either ignored the issue and said it’s be alright (Ireland, negotiations) or lied outright (Turkey).

BB. You can keep on insisting that the two sides lied equally, but they didn’t. Plain and simple.

[bobjimwilly]

There's obviously more than a few who voted brexit on here. Could one of you, if not all of you, give your honest opinions, based on facts, that we are better off outside the EU? Be it for economical reasons (e.g. we will be better off, more trade etc), political reasons, (e.g. no EU red tape), social reasons (e.g immigration) etc...

Remember, base it on FACTS given by multiple credible sources i.e. not just politicians and certainly no opinion piece in a newspaper ...

[hoolahoop]

..........Seems unsurprisingly enough to be " no takers " on this one bjw on ANY question.

[ravenrover]

There's obviously more than a few who voted brexit on here. Could one of you, if not all of you, give your honest opinions, based on facts, that we are better off outside the EU? Be it for economical reasons (e.g. we will be better off, more trade etc), political reasons, (e.g. no EU red tape), social reasons (e.g immigration) etc...

Remember, base it on FACTS given by multiple credible sources i.e. not just politicians and certainly no opinion piece in a newspaper ...

As no-one has replied to your invite, reverse it and tell me  how we will be worse off by leaving don't just paste up links to articles etc put it in plain English so that a thicky like me can understand it.
As a point of interest I didn't vote as I was one of the great unwashed at Glasto, had I voted I would have voted remain

[BillyStubbsTears]

Raven
It’s really very simple.

We are currently part of a customs union and free market which covers a richer group of people than any other market in the world.

We have the ability to make and sell things to 450million people over the Channel who are very rich by global standards. We can sell things to them with no barriers whatsoever. Equally, we can buy the things they sell.

We can’t do that with stuff from China, India, USA, Canada, South Korea etc. There’s paperwork to fill in. If you want to sell a widget made in Donny to someone in Oklahoma, YOU, the seller have to prove that the widget satisfies American Health and Safety and environmental requirements. Then the buyer has to pay customs costs when they import it.

Every sane economist knows that the world becomes a richer place if we remove barriers to trade. Putting barriers in the way of trade makes the things we buy from abroad more expensive. And it protects inefficient companies at home from competition, so they have no spur to improve. But trade agreements are brutal things. The strong hammer the weak. The strong say “you want to sell your Donny widgets in Oklahoma? Grand. But in return, we want you to privatise your NHS and let our massive medical companies have the chance to run it and privatise it. Or our chlorine washed chicken to be exported to the UK and sold in your shops.”

WE are choosing to leave the richest CU and SM in history. WE are choosing to make it harder for our companies to do business with Europe. Everyone knows that decision will make our economy less profitable. That’s beyond argument.

So people say that we’ll be able to cut deals with USA or China that will compensate for that loss. But they have never said what the numbers are. And they have never said how UK on its own, with an economy 5 times smaller than USA or China, can cut a deal that will benefit the UK, when the EU, which is economically as strong as USA or China hasn’t been able to do.

Now you have politicians like Johnson, Gove, Fox and Farage, with a track record of lying through their teeth telling us it’ll be OK but not telling us HOW it will be OK. But you also have economists with a track record of getting predictions right saying there is no way that any trade deals with other countries can possibly come close to making up what we will lose from leaving the EU.

Who do you believe?

[wilts rover]

In addition to Billy's points Raven on how membership of the EU gives our businesses access to the largest free-trade bloc on the planet, it also protects the same business from competition by cheaper foreign made imports. By imposing a tariff on those imports.

In an earlier post Billy mentioned the economist Patrick Minford as the only major economist to say that Brexit will be good for the country. What Billy didn't say is that yes Minford did predict Brexit would be good for the wealthy in the country, cheaper imports, more buying power, less restriction of movement on money - but in return it would 'almost eliminate manufacturing in the UK'.

It would be a strange person to think that's a benefit from Brexit but then again we are living in strange times.

[ravenrover]

I'm no economist and know very little about trade, but what you have said there, seem to be opinionated thoughts rather than fact. I must confess I don't read many newspapers or watch that much TV news or politics programmes but both sides merely seem to be pedalling opinions, are there any hard facts either way. People on both sides seem to be getting very worked up about "the lies" that each side are coming out with but what are the hard facts or is it all speculation. as to who do I believe, well I have never believed a word that comes out of a politicians mouth and certainly wonder about a lot of theories that economists come out with as I have said I am just a thicky, the average bloke on the street but as BJW has asked for FACTS from the leave side what are the FACTS from the remain side or is it all based purely on opinion on both sides

[Glyn_Wigley]

I'm no economist and know very little about trade, but what you have said there, seem to be opinionated thoughts rather than fact. I must confess I don't read many newspapers or watch that much TV news or politics programmes but both sides merely seem to be pedalling opinions, are there any hard facts either way. People on both sides seem to be getting very worked up about "the lies" that each side are coming out with but what are the hard facts or is it all speculation. as to who do I believe, well I have never believed a word that comes out of a politicians mouth and certainly wonder about a lot of theories that economists come out with as I have said I am just a thicky, the average bloke on the street but as BJW has asked for FACTS from the leave side what are the FACTS from the remain side or is it all based purely on opinion on both sides

How is the imposition of trade barriers opinion and not fact??

[hoolahoop]

Then we haven't even started with dearer holidays, visas, holiday insurance ( when the ehic card goes) , investment in our universities , Euratom, European Medicines Agency, employment and training of border guards, possible loss of Erasmus + assistance from the EU that let our brightest expand their knowledge, miles of tail backs at our ports and land borders , the damage to the Good Friday Agreement between N.Ireland and Eire, Gibraltar and Spain has difficulties too. I'm bored now sorry there's loads more areas of difficulty. A big one being a future Immigration Policy - see we NEED  immigrants doctors, nurses, care workers, engineers , scientists , pickers/ sorters  for fruit and arable farms etc.

Those are facts but I guess you knew about most of the above . PAGE after PAGE  of it all on this Off Topic section  but I'm not sure if you are pulling our leg but I think you might

NOW OVER TO THE BREXITERS TO GIVE YOU THEIR VISION OF THE BREXIT DIVIDEND..........

[hoolahoop]

I'm no economist and know very little about trade, but what you have said there, seem to be opinionated thoughts rather than fact. I must confess I don't read many newspapers or watch that much TV news or politics programmes but both sides merely seem to be pedalling opinions, are there any hard facts either way. People on both sides seem to be getting very worked up about "the lies" that each side are coming out with but what are the hard facts or is it all speculation. as to who do I believe, well I have never believed a word that comes out of a politicians mouth and certainly wonder about a lot of theories that economists come out with as I have said I am just a thicky, the average bloke on the street but as BJW has asked for FACTS from the leave side what are the FACTS from the remain side or is it all based purely on opinion on both sides

Are you not aware of the spurious assessment reports.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Raven

I’m not sure where to go with this. You don’t want me to post links, so how can I demonstrate that the stuff I’m saying is fact?

But there ARE facts out there. Here’s a few.

In late 2015/early 2016, the world economy was very sluggish. Ours was doing a bit better than most. Not spectacularly good, but ok. Our economy was growing fastest of the Big 7 (UK, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan). 

That matters because in the long run, the faster your economy grows, the richer you are as a country.

Then we had the Brexit vote.

Our economy started growing much less quickly. But EVERY ONE of the other Big 7 countries saw their economies start to grow MUCH quicker. We were the only one who didn’t. So, having been top performer of the Big 7 in 2016, we’re now second bottom of the table.

Those are facts. Demonstrable facts. I can post links if you want but you said you didn’t want them.

The fact is, the rest of the developed world has entered a phase where they are nearly all getting richer, quicker than we are. The overwhelming majority of economists said that is we voted Leave, precisely that would happen.

It’s happening.

What more proof are you wanting?

[idler]

How many people that voted for Brexit voted for the type of Brexit we seem to be approaching?
Common sense seems to be very thin on the ground whilst self-interest is in open view. I voted to be in a trading block in the 70s not a Federal Europe.